Hand of Isis

by Jo Graham

  We did not, however, stay in Rome. While the city spanned the right bank of the river, instead we came about and docked along the left side. There trees and parkland came down right to the water, and above, among the cypresses, I could see the occasional gleam of marble.

  “A Palace Quarter?” Iras asked.

  I nodded, steadying Demetria as the ship bumped against the dock. “It seems so.”

  Many of the rich men of Rome kept more than one house, and while an old family home on the Esquiline or Palatine was expected, many had built newer houses outside of the city proper, in the parks and wooded vistas on the other side of the Tiber. One of these was Caesar’s.

  I had never before been in a house that was entirely new. In Egypt, an old house may be a thousand years old, one floor built on top of another, one wall patched and remade of blocks that were once a city wall or a temple so long ago that the carvings are faded. Even in Alexandria, which is new by the standards of the Black Land, our houses were a hundred years old, or two. Of course new rooms might be added, old decoration torn down and brought up to date, a modern bath affixed to an older building, but a house built entirely from the beginning was a novelty to me.

  And yet that is what Caesar had done. Ten years ago this had been a wooded plot on a hillside. Caesar had approved the plans in Gaul, without walking the land himself, and in his absence the trees had been cut to supply a glorious vista of river and city on the other side, gardens and groves cunningly arranged, and amid it all the marble splendor of his new house. There was a hypocaust beneath the floors to provide radiant heat in the winter. The long colonnade facing the river had pots of Indian jasmine, whose perfume would fill the area during the summer. The walls were plastered and painted with scenes in bright colors, precious as a jewel box, as though even the smallest room were the setting for a brilliant play. The furniture was all new, elegant, and graceful, without a single scuff or mark of wear. There were twenty rooms, and each was perfect.

  “And this is to be the Queen’s bedchamber,” Caesar’s secretary, Apollonius, said as he showed me about.

  The walls were painted green, and on each panel was a pastoral scene—farmers working in fields, hunters with bows shooting at waterfowl, and so on. Through it all a great blue river ran. Boats plowed it, sailing serenely past cities half-imagined.

  “It’s the Nile,” Apollonius said. He shrugged. “Or at least what the artist thinks the Nile looks like.”

  To my mind it looked more like the Tiber out the window than the Nile, but it was still very pretty, and I said so.

  Apollonius nodded. He was a small man with graying hair and the purest Greek possible. Sold into slavery as a boy in Athens, he had been freed by Caesar some years ago. Since then he’d been at Caesar’s side from Gaul to Hispania, managing his affairs and writing his letters. He was, I thought, a man of whom to make a friend.

  “The Prince’s room is across the hall,” he said. “The windows are right above the guard post.” He looked at me significantly. “But I suppose you are used to guarding the boy.”

  “We have brought our own guards,” I said, “but we are also grateful for the loan of Caesar’s men.”

  “Yes, well,” Apollonius said. “It’s the Germans. Legionaries can be bribed. The Germans have blood oaths. They believe if they break them that their god will send ravens to eat out their entrails while they are still living. A safe enough guard for Caesar’s son.”

  That pleased me in more than one way. “He means to acknowledge him, then?”

  Apollonius sighed. “Caesar has a wife. I take it you know that?”

  I nodded.

  “And it is also Roman law that no marriage with a noncitizen can be valid, even should Caesar be divorced. So you see he could not marry your Queen, Egyptian as she is. Roman may only marry Roman. He may acknowledge Caesarion, but he cannot legitimize him.”

  I felt myself coloring. “My mistress is a Queen, and laws can be changed.”

  “Not in Rome.” Apollonius looked at me seriously. “Caesar may convince the Senate to make some special exception, but the people will never accept it, and Caesar knows that. No one who is not born Roman will ever be the equal of someone who is. An affair of the heart or an affair of state in some distant place is one thing. A son who might be Caesar’s heir is another.”

  He must have seen my back stiffen, for he went on: “Not that I don’t wish it otherwise! Not that Caesar doesn’t. I’ve been with him nearly twenty years now. I was with him when Julia died, and that poor child who didn’t live long enough to be named.”

  “I am well acquainted with Gnaeus Pompeius myself,” I said grimly.

  Apollonius nodded shortly. “Then you know everything to be settled to that account. The child was a boy, and there was no mark on him. But a pillow doesn’t leave a mark.”

  I shivered. “I could believe it of him,” I said.

  “These things happen in Rome,” Apollonius said. “But then the House of Ptolemy is not always a loving family.”

  “Indeed not,” I said. “Understand that we are always watchful. Caesarion is the heir to the throne of Egypt. We could not be more careful of his life.” I turned, lifting my chiton to show the scar on my thigh. “This I took for the Queen myself, when we were little more than girls. I have belonged to her since we were six years old.”

  Apollonius nodded gravely. “Then you know how it is. The great ones live as long as they are well served.”

  CAESAR CAME THAT EVENING, just as night was falling. We had five hours to get the house in order and to get a suitable meal on the table. Fortunately, Apollonius had gotten a head start on things, and the cook was Caesar’s own, sent over from his house in the city. What Caesar’s wife had to say about that remained a mystery.

  I did not see their meeting, in the atrium of the house with all of Caesar’s entourage of great men about him and all of our people. I was changing Caesarion’s chiton again, which he had somehow gotten soaking wet in the ten minutes before his father arrived.

  I jerked it down over his head a little impatiently, rose-colored silk worked with golden borders. He was supposed to be in yellow, to match his mother’s gown, but his chiton was now sopping wet. “Now stay clean,” I admonished. “Caesarion, you’re a prince, not a ragamuffin. Try to look the part for an hour!” This was his fourth clean chiton today. I shoved his dark curls back from his forehead and picked him up. If he could just avoid pissing until it was over. I didn’t want to clout him like a baby lest Caesar think he was behind hand, but he hadn’t entirely mastered asking to use the pot every time.

  “I try,” he said firmly, and smiled at me with his big dark eyes.

  I kissed him soundly. “Come now, sweet,” I said. “Let’s meet your father.”

  CAESAR LOOKED OLDER. Perhaps it was that he stood next to Marcus Antonius, who might have posed for a sculptor as the model of some hero, or perhaps these two years had taken their toll. The lines were more deeply graven around his mouth, and in the skin of his throat one could see the veins beginning to bulge, there and in the backs of his hands.

  “Here is Caesarion now,” Cleopatra said, and looked at me as the men parted for us.

  Caesarion, for a wonder, did nothing at all untoward, just looked at them all curiously, lovely as a rosebud in his pink silk, his dark hair curling across his brow and his eyes alive with mischief.

  Caesar took in a single breath. Every man waited to see what he should do.

  Caesar came toward him, and he knew enough about children not to reach for him. Babies will tolerate that, but a child who is two and a bit is likely to turn away and clamber. Caesar clasped his hands behind his back and bent toward him like a tutor. “So you are Ptolemy Caesar.”

  “No,” said Caesarion firmly, his favorite word. “No, no, no.”

  Caesar laughed, and then everyone did.

  “We call him Caesarion,” Cleopatra said, coming to my side. “He doesn’t answer to Ptolemy.”

  “You shou
ld rather be Caesar than Ptolemy then?” Caesar asked. His eyes explored the boy’s face hungrily, every line of it. He looked like his mother, yes. Or like any child, round-faced, but beneath the curves of childhood he should have Caesar’s fine bones. The resemblance would come. I had seen it in his infant face.

  Caesarion looked back, and having seen all day things that were Caesar’s decided to gamble. “I want a dog,” he said.

  “Will not your mother give you a dog?” Caesar asked, looking sideways at Cleopatra.

  “You are too young for a dog, as I keep saying,” she said, reaching for him and taking him from me, his arm going about her neck. “You may have one when you are older. And it is no use asking Caesar for one.”

  “So your mother says,” Caesar said, and turned to the Queen. One dark eye flickered in a wink at Caesarion, who giggled.

  Together, they might have posed for a tableau, Isis in gold, beautiful and smiling, Horus on her shoulder in pink, Serapis by their side, his face graven with care, his white toga about him like a shroud. No, I thought, forcing the idea away from me. Of course he is not young. He was not three years ago.

  Caesar turned to Antonius, his voice pitched loudly enough to be heard around the atrium. “What do you say, Antonius? Is my son a well-grown boy?”

  “Your son is a fine boy,” Marcus Antonius said gravely, no doubt just as he had been rehearsed. An exhalation that was almost palpable ran through the room. “Any man would say so. I think he favors your father somewhat.”

  As surely Caesar’s father had been dead long before Antonius’ childhood, I doubted that he could say so with any veracity, but perhaps he had examined a bust or statue.

  “I see the Julians there,” Caesar said, smiling at Caesarion again. “Descended of Iulos, that son of mighty Aeneas who fled Troy for our Italian shores. It is in his eyes.”

  Everything said, they went in to dinner. I took the child back, and he looked out from my arms as the crowd passed. A thought arose unbidden: Wilos’ eyes were blue, though the shape of his face was the same.

  Europa

  The party ended an hour short of midnight, Caesar and the other notables leaving in a long procession of litters, guards about and torchmen before and following. I did not see them go. I was in the kitchen, making certain of the washing up. It was a point of pride that Apollonius should see everything that was Caesar’s in good order the next morning. And much was Caesar’s, as our dishes and furnishings had not yet been brought from the ship. They would arrive at midday, and then I would have a great deal more to do.

  When every fragile cup was stowed and the hearth fire banked, I sent the slaves to get some sleep, and walked out through the front of the house, checking everything for the last time. The white marble floor of the dining room glinted wetly. It had just been mopped.

  I was standing in the atrium looking around the dining room doors when I heard the sound of swift hooves, the challenge of the guards outside, the exchange of voices.

  It was Caesar. Only four men accompanied him, and I heard them dismounting just outside. The bodyguards did not enter.

  I stood a moment longer, hesitating, and saw him cross the atrium with a tread as light as a young man’s, saw her meet him halfway, standing together, their foreheads touching, silhouetted against the light that poured in above from the compluvium. It was too far to hear their voices, low as they were, meant only for each other’s ears. I saw her smile, and he bent his head to her shoulder, his face against the warm flesh of her neck. Her eyes closed as her arms went around him.

  I stepped back into the dining room, heedless of the floor. This was not something I was meant to see, me or anyone else.

  I slipped through the dining room and out another door, back toward the kitchen, something like an ache stirring inside me. No one would ever greet me that way, and Agrippa . . .

  If Agrippa wanted to send a message to me, it would be easy. He must guess I would be here with the Queen. And I had had no letter in Alexandria in more than two years. He had of course grown out of his infatuation, the idealistic desire of a very young man, certain he is in love with the first woman who has looked at him and seen a warrior, not a little boy. He had meant the things he said when he said them, but of course he did not now.

  I opened the kitchen door, momentarily surprised to see the oldest of the slaves now serving up ham and bread and the remains of the watercress from dinner to three or four men. Of course. The escort.

  “Charmian?”

  Emrys stood by the hearth, a slab of bread in his hand, his scarlet cavalry cloak tossed carelessly over one shoulder. He grinned at me, and the next instant I hurried to embrace him. He was taller even than I remembered, taller than Dion. My head barely came to his chin, and his eyes were sea green. “Emrys! What are you doing here?”

  “I came with Caesar,” he said, putting me back to look at me. “My ala has escort duty this week, and I’m the ranking officer. You look well.”

  “So do you,” I said. In truth he did. He looked tanned and fit, his face properly shaved, but with his long hair pulled back in a tail. “Dion will be horribly jealous that I’ve seen you. He wanted to come, but couldn’t without disrupting everything at the Museum.”

  “I know,” Emrys said. “I’m sorry he couldn’t. But I expect his experiments are important.”

  “Yes,” I said, wondering if he would think that an odd theory about each material having a specific weight unique to it was worth pursuing. As near as I could tell, it seemed to involve dropping bits of things in a vessel of water and weighing them over and over. I thought Archimedes had already done that.

  “Come and sit and eat,” I said. “Would you like some wine? Are you hungry?” I drew him to one of the long trestle tables. “I can find a meal for you if you’d like.”

  “I’m well supplied, thank you,” he said and sat beside me, the bread in his hand. “We all had dinner earlier at the barracks. We’re just off the Campus Martius. It’s not supposed to be allowed to bring troops into the city, so Caesar just has the bodyguards at his house. After all, lots of men have German bodyguards. I think we look a little too much like troops. It’s the horses.” He grinned at me.

  “And the leather,” I said. “And possibly the plumes.”

  In the end, I did not sleep at all. I sat up all night in the kitchen talking with Emrys. Also, I timed the Queen to a nicety. I got up stiffly from the bench just before I heard the footsteps, the slave who slept outside her door moving as the Queen called for something.

  Emrys gave me a smile over the long-since-cold remains of eggs we had shared some hours before. “Time to go,” he said.

  “Aren’t you exhausted?” I asked.

  Emrys shrugged. “We’ll see Caesar back to the Campus Martius, and the Germans will take him from there. They’ve had a full night’s sleep. Then we’ll turn in and get some rest. Nobody expects us to run the day around. But you probably have to, don’t you?”

  I mentally cursed myself for staying up, thinking of the furniture and dishes that were coming from the ship in a few hours. And soon Caesarion would be up. Of course his nurse would chase him, and there were plenty of people to make sure he and Demetria had their breakfasts, but the first morning in a new place they would want me. “I do,” I said. “But it was worth it to talk to you, Emrys.”

  “A friend is good to have,” he said, and brushed an errant strand of hair out of his eyes.

  A friend. Other than Dion, I had very few friends. I had slaves and masters, sycophants who sought me out for favor with the Queen, relatives and children and all the rest. But I had very few friends.

  He stood while one of his men went out and called for the grooms to saddle their horses. The horses, at least, must not stand ready all night. “I know you’re busy today, but tomorrow if you can get away for a few hours, I’d enjoy showing you the city.”

  “Show me Rome?”

  Emrys shrugged. “Why not? You showed me the orrery in Alexandria. Let me s
how you a thing or two.”

  “I would like that very much,” I said.

  OF COURSE the next day was impossible. Caesar wanted to introduce the Queen to any number of distinguished men, and naturally it was necessary to do so at a private dinner at her house. The Queen could not take any part in the public business of Rome.

  Putting on a production of that sort in only a couple of days was a major undertaking. Unlike the men who had accompanied Caesar to the first small dinner, these guests were not friends. They were important, and hence dangerous. Some were actual enemies, but most were leaders of some faction or another whose favor must be courted. Only a few, like Marcus Antonius, could already be counted upon.

  The afternoon before I was seeing to the wreaths, with an ear on Demetria and Caesarion plaguing their nurse in the atrium, when one of the door guards called to me. “Domina, there is a gentleman here who says that he needs to see you, and that he is known to you.”

  I went out into the atrium, wondering if it was the florist with the roses for the feast, and if so why the guard should style him a gentleman.

  It was Marcus Agrippa. My heart nearly stopped when I saw him. I had forgotten he was so beautiful.

  He was wearing a toga, which I had never seen him in before, and it suited his height and the breadth of his shoulders. He had grown in two years. He was as tall as Emrys now, but more strongly built, with the narrow hips and wide shoulders that sculptors love to give to heroes. His brown hair was cut short, except where it curled across his brow, and his eyes lit at the sight of me.